Ms. Rice "regrets"

Condoleeza Rice, US secretary of state, is currently in Tokyo as part of a Northeast Asian tour intended to reinvigorate the stalled six-party talks.

At a press conference on Wednesday Ms. Rice reportedly conveyed her and Ambassador Schieffer's regrets to the victim of the alleged rape and her family, and said, according to the Washington Post, "I would hope they know that the American government is concerned about them and the American people are concerned about them." In a meeting with Prime Minister Fukuda, she affirmed the US commitment to devise a system for ensuring the recurrence of criminal incidents in Okinawa. As Mainichi reports, there is some disagreement between the US (and the Japanese government) on one side and Okinawan authorities on the other as far as countermeasures are concerned. Tokyo has proposed joint US MP-Okinawan Police patrols, a proposal to which the Okinawan prefectural government has responded coolly.

Meanwhile, there is a problem with Ms. Rice's remarks. Of course for the sake of appearances she has to apologize — is this an apology? — on behalf of the American people as well as the US government. It is difficult to say, however, that the American people know or care about this problem. I'm sure if prompted many Americans would express their own regrets about the incident, but public opinion is more or less silent on this issue and the alliance in general. If asked, many Americans would probably wonder why US forces are needed in Japan in the first place (back to the difficulty of discerning just what the "average" voter thinks). The silence of US public opinion on this issue, especially when compared with the political sensitivity of the base issue in Japan, means that Washington has a much freer hand than Tokyo. Accordingly, the US must necessarily lead on transformation. If the sections of the 2006 agreement pertaining to Okinawa are to be fulfilled on schedule, Washington cannot wait for Japan to act: it must take the initiative itself.

Ms. Rice's words are fine — but action is what's needed.

Dueling with the right in Japan and the US

Perhaps as a sign that the six-party talk's latest agreement on North Korea is getting dangerously close to proceeding smoothly, there are signs that the positions of two actors are changing, one for the better, one for the worse.

For the better, Sasae Kenichiro, Japan's negotiator in the six-party talks, suggested in a meeting with Dennis Wilder, the NSC's senior Asia assistant, that it is "essential" to execute a verifible denuclearization for North Korea to be removed from the terror list, a position that is strikingly close to the US position. Mr. Sasae apparently appended a remark about the abductions issue, but it seems that the overall thrust of the talks — according to Asahi — was actually the nuclear issue, suggesting that Japan might be ready for a subtle shift in its position in the talks.

At the same time, however, the New York Times reports that the American right, which has been remarkably quiet about the latest progress in negotiations with North Korea (giving Chris Hill and Condoleeza Rice space to bargain with Pyongyang), has turned on Secretary Rice, with Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen meeting with Ms. Rice to question the administration's North Korea policy. Perhaps Republican discontent is more a sign of fears that the deal might work: when it was unclear whether Mr. Hill's bargaining would bear fruit, conservatives could hold off from sniping at the negotiations out of confidence that the talks would fall apart.

Now, though, it may be too late for conservatives to do anything to stop it — unless there is some truth to the lingering rumor that Israel destroyed a North Korea-provided Syrian nuclear facility last month.

In any case, it seems that the tacit alliance between American and Japanese conservatives, cemented during the tenures of Messrs. Koizumi and Abe, remains sound, even as US-Japan relations experience a bit of turmoil.